The Alphabet Inc unit has whittled down some free storage
offers in recent months, while prodding more users toward a new paid cloud
subscription called Google One. That’s happening as the amount of data people
stash online continues to soar.

When people hit those caps, they realise they have little
choice but to start paying, or risk losing access to emails, photos and
personal documents. The cost isn’t excessive for most consumers, but at the
scale Google operates, this could generate billions of dollars in extra revenue
each year for the company. Google didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.

A big driver of the shift is Gmail. Google shook up the
email business when Gmail launched in 2004 with much more free storage than
rivals were providing at the time. It boosted the storage cap every couple of
years, but in 2013 it stopped. People’s inboxes kept filling up. And now that
some of Google’s other free storage offers are shrinking, consumers are
beginning to get nasty surprises.

“I was merrily using the account and one day I noticed
I hadn’t received any email since the day before,” said Rod Adams, a nuclear
energy analyst and retired naval officer. After using Gmail since 2006, he’d
finally hit his 15GB cap and Google had cut him off. Switching away from Gmail
wasn’t an easy option because many of his social and business contacts reach
him that way.

“I just said ‘OK, been free for a long time, now I’m
paying’,” Adams said.

Other Gmail users aren’t so happy about the changes. “I
am unreasonably sad about using almost all of my free google storage. Felt
infinite. Please don’t make me pay! I need U gmail googledocs!,” one person
tweeted in September.

Some people have tweeted panicked messages to Google in
recent months as warnings about their storage limits hit.

One self-described tech enthusiast said he’s opened multiple
Gmail accounts to avoid bumping up on Google’s storage limits.

Google has also ended or limited other promotions recently
that gave people free cloud storage and helped them avoid Gmail crises. New
buyers of Chromebook laptops used to get 100GB at no charge for two years. In
May 2019 that was cut to one year.

Google’s Pixel smartphone, originally launched in 2016, came
with free, unlimited photo storage via the company’s Photos service. The latest
Pixel 4 handset that came out in October still has free photo storage, but the
images are compressed now, reducing the quality.

More than 11,500 people in a week signed an online petition
to bring back the full, free Pixel photos deal. Evgeny Rezunenko, the petition
organiser, called Google’s change a “hypocritical and cash grabbing move”.

“Let us remind Google that part of the reason of people
choosing Pixel phones over other manufacturers sporting a similar hefty price
tag was indeed this service,” he wrote.

Smartphones dramatically increased the number of photos
people take – one estimate put the total for 2017 at 1.2 trillion. Those images
quickly fill up storage space on handsets, so tech companies, including Apple
Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Google, offered cloud storage as an alternative. Now
those online memories are piling up, some of these companies are charging users
to keep them.

Apple has been doing this for several years, building its
iCloud storage service into a lucrative recurring revenue stream. When iPhone
users get notifications that their devices are full and they should either
delete photos and other files or pay more for cloud storage, people often
choose the cloud option.

In May, Google unveiled Google One, a replacement for its
Drive cloud storage service. There’s a free 15GB tier – enough room for about
5,000 photos, depending on the resolution. Then it costs US$1.99 (RM8.30) a
month for 100GB and up from there. This includes several types of files
previously stashed in Google Drive, plus Gmail emails and photos and videos.
The company ended its Chromebook two-year 100GB free storage offer around the
same time, while the Pixel free photo storage deal ended in October with the
release of the Pixel 4.

Gmail, Drive and Google Photos have more than 1 billion
users each. As the company whittles away free storage offers and prompts more
people to pay, that creates a potentially huge new revenue stream for the
company. If 10% of Gmail users sign up for the new US$1.99 (RM8.30) a month
Google One subscription, that would generate almost US$2.4bil (RM10.05bil) a
year in annual, recurring sales for the company.

Adams, the Gmail user, is one of the people contributing to
this growing Google business. US$1.99 (RM8.30) a month is a relatively small
price to pay to avoid losing his main point of digital contact with the world.